>> where the presidential race stands after tuesday's town hall face-off. and a look ahead to monday night's final showdown on foreign policy. plus, the president's plan. he's been mum about his second term agenda. we've got some ideas about what to expect. all that and the green energy fiasco. another administration favorite follows solyndra into bankruptcy and takes millions in taxpayer money with it. >> welcome "the journal editorial report." the presidential candidates met for their second debate this week with a more spirited president obama trading jabs

with republican rival mitt romney on everything from immigration to taxes. national polls show the race still very much a toss-up, and swing state surveys continue to tighten. we welcome in our panel this week. so kim, i talked to a lot of democrats this week who were elated by the president's performance. they say that the king is back. he's really rocking now. [laughter] momentum the big mo's with him. what do you think about that? are they right? >> well, i mean, the president certainly made his base thrilled with his performance at the debate. that was one of the things he needed to do. look, there's too many questions coming at the president's campaign. he needed to settle and calm those fears. yes, he succeeded at. what he did not arguably do at

the debate is in any stem the damage that mitt romney inflicted in the first debate, which was to expose that he's not really running publicly with a second term agenda. and that's what independents and a lot of undecided voters are looking at that. in that he sounded like someone who was stumbling, didn't have a plan, and that was a problem. >> let's roll and add that the -- obama campaign is rolling out this week following the debate, which they think is a big plus for them. let's see. >> in what new ways do you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace, specifically regarding females making only 72% of what their female counterparts earn? >> i had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seem to be men. i said, well, gosh, can't we find some women that are also

qualified? they brought us binders full of women. >> so binders full of women being the web viral line of the week. it's clearly a strategy on obama's part, aimed at turning out women voters, which they're concerned about where romney is making inroads. what do you think of that strategy? making. >> kim, the women's vote is crucial for obama. i mean, they are stressing this, every democrat i talk to says

this may be where the election, what it depends on. >> look, they've got a couple of core subgroups. the hispanic community, minors, in particularly women and the youth vote. whether or not barack obama wins will be in part by hue huge a margin, if he has one at all, that he wins women over mitt romney. this is why they're so concerned, where they're running this ad. what really happened after the first debate in denver is that mitt romney calmed a lot of fears that women had about him and he started to narrow the gap, to the point in some polls he's polling evenly with the president among women. that's why they're pursuing this so aggressively. >> okay. dana, you got something to say on this subject? >> not so much the women, but the one questioner in that debate was the black fellow who stood up and simply asked the president about what he's doing for everyday lives. >> we've got an ad that plays off that answer.

>> all right. >> let's look at it. this is a romney ad. >> his policies haven't worked. median income's down $4300 a family. and 23 million americans out of work. he said that he'd cut in half the deficit. he just hasn't been able to put in place reforms for medicare and social security to preserve them. that's what this election is about. it's about who can get the middle class in this country a bright and prosperous future and assure our kids the kind of hope and optimism they deserve. >> this is the big mega theme that romney is developing, focused on the economy, nationally based, not regionally based. i thought that was his most effective answer in that debate. >> oh, i did, too. i think it was the megaissue. i think that fellow put his finger right on it. how can we relate my economic life, my daily life, to what's going on in the larger economy? and president obama virtually had nothing to say to him. by the time he was done, he was talking about ending the war in

iraq and killing bin laden. >> don't forget, but 100,000 -- >> right. >> the romney critique, the litany of obama broken promises that he went through, that was the best part of the debate. i would like to see romney do a little more explaining why liberating the economy, simplifying the tax code, creates jobs, a little bit more about why freedom works better than the government. in terms of knocking down the obama's claims, and he correctly pointed out that the obama has cut energy production on federal lands, and he scored. >> it's interesting to me that the romney campaign has this large national theme, the economy isn't working for you, here's how we can fix it. obama has a microstrategy, like they're trying to run 10 governors races, so he emerges as mr. coal for southeast ohio. >> yes. >> and western virginia, microtargeting strategies.

it's an interesting distinction. >> it is an interesting distinction. i want to know where is the demand for details on how he will achieve all the things he's promising. they want details on romney's tax codes. how will the president create jobs? another achievement of romney was that he exposed the president's lack of leadership. he says, where's the plan to fix entitlements? that's a theme he needs to hit on in the next debates in the days to come. >> when we come back, the president may have been more spirited in this week's debate, but not more specific. when will he play out his agenda for the next four years? >> i think it's interesting that the president still doesn't have an agenda for a second term. don't you think it's time for hip to finally put together a vision for what he would do ins next four years if he were elected? he has to come up with that over this weekend, because there's only one debate left on monday. jack, you're a little boring.

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>> the commitments i've made, i've kept. those i haven't kept, it's not for lack of trying and we'll get it done in a second term. >> if you elect president obama, you know what you'll get. you'll get a repeat of the last four years. we can't afford four more years like the last four years. >> a promise by president obama to make good on past commitments in a second term, something mitt romney says america can't afford. what exactly does the president have in store if he's re-elected. we're back with our panel. james, what is the president proposing to do? >> basically you heard it in the debates. more teachers, 100,000 more teachers, more infrastructure. we've been hearing that since '09. he still wants more money for infrastructure. >> not so shovel-ready projects, i guess that it? >> that's another question.

these things can take 5 to 10 years to build if congress ever gave them more money for it. they're not going to happen in a second term. the other thing is, according to him trillions in deficit reduction. reduction from what he would like to spend, i guess, is the theoretical number. >> yeah, not so much cuts in spending, but reductions in the rate of growth of spending. >> right. >> it's all about 2014. it's about consolidating obamacare, making sure that's the law of the land, and a full withdrawal from afghanistan, nation-building at home, a constant theme of this presidency, that the tide of war is receding so we can build a new social democratic state. >> i would argue that's going to be closing argument, after a decade of war, now it's time to take that money and invest it at home. is that a winner? >> look, it's not -- it's a beguiling argument. i mean, it's very easy to tell americans, look, we've spent all these hundreds of billions of

dollars trying to build countries, afghanistan, iraq. we should be investing that money in the united states. mitt romney's response ought to be the world security and our security, their prosperity and our prosperity, are entwined. we are part of a global economy. >> okay. dan, was it's a mistake for the president to leave this opening? i mean, basically he's saying, fundamentally, four more years, just need more time. so if you like what you see, then you're going to say, okay, let's give it more time. or if you think maybe he just hasn't had enough time. if you don't like the direction we're going, then that creates an opening for romney to chip away and say, you know, all you're going to get is more of the same. >> well, i think romney could do a better job of defining and explaining what more of the same means. what more of the same means -- and i don't think barack obama would deny this, because he believes it -- is public investing in the economy. in other words, obama doesn't really think much about the

private economy. when the issue of regulation, for instance, comes up, he starts criticizing the private economy for not submitting more to his regulations to make them work better. he personally is going to take enormous amounts of revenue out of the private economy and then he will invest it back in green jobs and teachers. >> but look, i think a point that's important to note is that, you know, we like to think this is a retread of carter where the last four years have been absolutely disastrous and in some ways have been terrible, but they haven't been as disastrous as the carter years. romney can't simply say the last four years we can't afford to repeat, because most americans are working, most americans have jobs. the unemployment rate is coming down slightly. he has to provide a vision for what a romney administration does that radically improves people's lives. >> well, he's trying to do that with his five points, i guess. at this point that's baked in. he'll either do that -- people are either going to buy that or they're not. he's not going to come up with

any new policies. a republican from texas said, president doesn't need to propose a lot. he has obamacare locked in, the spending on that will increase. he's got the tax cuts, the rates from the bush years. >> rates are going rise. >> they're expiring. they're going to go up automatically. all of this is baked in. he just needs to basically preside over it and he gets a huge part of his agenda continuing. >> well, we'll see. i mean, he ran on -- in 2008 with a message of hope, and hope would really be the theme of a second term, hope that the world's investors will continue to lend us money, even as he continues to run massive deficits. we've been lucky with rates so low. we're paying $200 billion a year, the government, just in interest. normalize $600 billion a year. that's basically medicare just in interest on the debt every year. so i think hope that the world's markets will continue to fund his spending would be a key issue. >> fingers crossed. >> yeah. >> kim, what about the prospects of a budget deal , and

republicans hold the house, are we going to get a big debt bargain? >> this is going to be ugly. one of the problems, i don't think republicans have necessarily thought entirely through, most voters have not thought entirely through, if barack obama is re-elected, he holds an incredibly strong hand here on the issues of the bush tax policy, which are already set to expire on january 2nd, and the sequester already set to kick on january 2nd, huge cuts to defense and domestic budgets. he's going to demand that the republicans give on something if they want to, for instance, restore money to the defense department? it will be probably be demands for some of his tax hikes. that's the one thing he's been campaigning on in this election season. >> all right. thank you. when we come back, a skirmish over benghazi in this week's debate sets the teenage for the candidate's final show -- sets the stage for the candidates' final showdown on monday. what mitt romney needs to do monday night to convince voters he coulde do better than

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say we have. i said we'd transition out of afghanistan and start making sure that afghanistan is responsible for its own security. that's what i'm doing. >> iran is closer to a nuclear bomb. syria is not just the tragedy of civilians being killed by a military, but also a strategically player for america. the president's policies throughout the middle east began an apology tour, and the strategy is unraveling before

our very eyes. >> barack obama and president obama trading shots over the president's record abroad, just a preview of what's to come monday night when the candidates square off in their third and final debate devoted to foreign policy. this is typically the president's strongest area, foreign policy, plays to his experience. is this perilous turf for romney? >> not at all. it has been his strongest area until last month, the attacks in benghazi. since then the white house has been on the defensive, being accused misleading the electoral. a pew poll out this week says romney and obama ever even on who will handle foreign policy better. this speaks to a growing feeling in the american electorate that president obama has politicized foreign policy, that everything he's done in foreign policy, especially last year, is driven by his re-election strategy. >> the president scored in the

debate by accusing romney of saying you are getting very upset because romney had said -- he implied, said we politicalize foreign policy. he said, no, we don't do that, and don't you dare say that. >> i think there's an even greater danger. i have worries about this debate coming up monday, because i think the obama team understands that romney really hasn't clarified his foreign policy positions and they'll turn to president specifically on libya, iran, syria or russia, what would you do differently? if he isn't able to do that, at the end of the debate, obama will look presidential. >> look, president obama has a huge ace up his sleeve. that ace is called george w. bush. the american people think of the bush administration as a lengthy period in which america was -- became a kind of global pariah. we weren't popular around the world. we had these wars that seemed to

go on without end and without effect. they began on dubious premises. romney is going to have to -- >> we supported all of those things, i have to say. >> i'm telling you, this is the perception that president obama is going play on. unless romney is able to say, to distinguish himself from bush, obama is going to have an advantage in this debate. he has to say, when i look to my predecessors, i think of ronald reagan and harry truman, i think of the idea of peace through strength, american credibility, a strong economy that gives america the credibility it needs in china and elsewhere in the world. if romney pins him as another bush, he's in trouble. >> ll, i think romney has to be careful not to just go with the platitudes. >> should he fight on benghazi? >> absolutely. the problem with benghazi was not that obama went to las vegas the next day for a fundraiser. >> so what is it? >> the problem with benghazi is

that the administration, first of all, misled the country for two weeks about what happened, or apparently misled, or it didn't know what happened for two weeks, which is just as bad. it didn't come clean about the concerns about security that happened before anniversary of 9/11, insisting the attacks on 9/11 were just caused by a youtube video. >> where are the other vulnerabilities on foreign policy for the president? >> well, i think the vulnerabilities -- just to carry on from what we've been saying here, the primary vulnerability is that the president, as he said, i pulled out of iraq, we're pulling out of afghanistan, his foreign policy has been to stand back on almost all these issues. what we learned in libya is that if the united states stands back, bad things can happen, because the villains step forward as they are in the middle east. if romney goes down that list -- >> how does romney avoid bret's

point, the argument obama will pin on to him, he wants to get into another war, folks. he won't say that explicitly, but that will be the undercurrent of all his argument. americans are war weary. >> i would say what obama said to romney in the last debate, mr. president, that's offensive. nobody runs for the presidency saying he wants to get into war. their goal is to prevent war. he should explain why his policies will prevent war. >> does romney even need to win this debate? i'm not so sure he does. seems to me what he needs to do is to seem competent, fluent, knowledgeable, serious, not make a mistake. if he plays on a relatively playing field and looks good, even if he doesn't win on points, i think that basically is all he needs to do here, then make the point that foreign policy strength debates on economic revival at home. >> i think romney needs to win every debate. i think to the extent that this campaign thinks it has it in the bag -- >> oh, no, no, i'm not saying that. >> -- they're making a big

mistake. there are large vulnerabilities for the president. romney should be quick enough to exploit them. look, if he gets a draw, is that def consolidating fodevastating? no. but if the president says about romney, he would draw you into another war. >> coming up on the u.s. economy as the housing sector shows new signs of life. is america on the road to recovery or are there more setbacks ahead? plus, president obama's green energy debacle. yet another administration favorite goes under and takes millions in taxpayer money with it. turns out som somelin [ male announcer ] this is rudy.

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>> live from america's election headquarters, 17 days from the election, 48 luxurious from the final presidential debate, both president obama and governor romney in intense preps ahead